


After This I Promise Not To Interrupt Again

by Snap_crackle_spock



Series: Bonds Broken [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: NOT AT ALL compliant with the SW rebels timeline tho, Set around the time of Rebels, anyway have you figured out I love Ahsoka and Anakin's dynamic yet?, bc I did not watch that show, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21726466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snap_crackle_spock/pseuds/Snap_crackle_spock
Summary: There’s an aspect of psychological warfare that is required to take down an enemy, one which was never really taught in the Jedi Order. For better or worse, though, Ahsoka was no Jedi.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Bonds Broken [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1565923
Comments: 9
Kudos: 91





	After This I Promise Not To Interrupt Again

**Author's Note:**

> I call this one "I wrote 4,000 words of wildly out of character nonsense to give myself the closure that Star Wars never gave me"
> 
> Title from This Is The Song (Good Luck) by Punch Brothers
> 
> This update came a lot faster than I'd anticipated
> 
> Heavily inspired by the Force Connection scenes between Rey and Kylo in TLJ (except they wish they had half the chemistry of Anakin and Ahsoka do NOT come for me)

There’s an aspect of psychological warfare that is required to take down an enemy, one which was never really taught in the Jedi Order. For better or worse, though, Ahsoka was no Jedi. 

* * *

  
  


It hurt, realizing that Anakin was that… that thing that was cowering behind a mask while running the galaxy- well, was he even in there anymore? Was there anything even left of her former master? Her friend? The man who she’d left behind, yes, but she’d never intended for it to be for forever. Not like how it was now. 

He had to be in there, somewhere, though. If he wasn’t, if he truly was nothing more than a puppet for the Empire to control, an empty shell of the man she once knew, he wouldn’t have responded. Their bond wouldn’t still be intact. He wasn’t the same, but he was still there. Somewhere. He had to be. She couldn’t let him not be. 

She had thought, all of those years ago when she was still nothing more than a hurt kid, that if she got to leave, if she wasn’t the one _getting left_ , maybe things would be different. That taking control and not sticking around to get hurt again was the right move. That if she could just operate by her own rules, without an Order that so clearly was eager to turn on her, she could still do good, maybe even more than she had been doing before. 

Foolishly, she’d thought that it’s what Anakin would’ve done in her place. And, to his credit, he’d let her go. He’d tried constantly to get her back, but he’d never forced her. 

Even more foolishly, she’d thought that, just maybe, he’d leave with her. That, because he’d always been so vocal about how clearly he too saw the issues in the Order, that her tipping point would align with his. That seeing the loss of faith in their own would spark him to leave, too. 

She’d been blind, as a child. 

Maybe she was still blind. 

This self-awareness at her own misstepping didn’t stop her from trying, though. 

In much the same way that Anakin had constantly tried to break through her mental walls, using their bond as a conduction rod to constantly grasp for her attention, to try to check up on her after she’d left the Order, she was a constant annoyance to the infamous Darth Vader. It was a risky play, as the bond went both ways and by opening herself up enough to try to make a connection with him, she was leaving herself vulnerable. She was leaving countless rebel bases, plans, and names vulnerable. 

And the worst part?

She truly, deeply, whole-heartedly understood that and _didn’t care._

Anything was worth this. 

  
  


* * *

_Hey, Bucket Head, how does it feel knowing that you’re the whole problem? How does it feel being the cause of the deaths of all of your friends?_

_I bet Obi-Wan’s real kiffing proud._

  
  


* * *

_Nice shot. Who taught you, some of the Stormtroopers?_

* * *

_Can we stop dancing around this? Can we stop pretending that you’re not Anakin and I wasn’t your Padawan and maybe there’s a bit more complexity to this whole war than Light Side versus Dark Side?_

  
  


* * *

_What ever happened to Padme? Do I even want to know? (By the way, you two were_ never _as slick as you thought you were. The entire 501st had a betting pool on what you two would name your kids. I personally put heavy money on Ahsoka 2 and Rastacore. Tell me if I missed the mark.)_

  
  


* * *

_Come fight me in person like a real Jedi. Stop sending your little minions after us and grow a pair. I can’t wait to dislodge your stupid breathing tubes and wear them like a trophy._

  
  


* * *

_I miss you._

  
  


* * *

_Do you ever think of what it would’ve been like if_ anything _had changed? If I’d stayed or if you’d left or maybe if the galaxy hadn’t been so awful to either of us in the first place. I like to think that in another life you’d be a pro podracer and I’d be a mechanic. But then I remember that you and I liked fighting for the good guys too much for anything that tame. Where did that go? Not just in you, me too._

  
  


* * *

_I think if I was a Sith Lord my name would be Darth Monstroserous, the Star Eater. Beats the nonsense you came up with, anyway._

* * *

_Why didn’t you leave? You hated them, too. Maybe if you had you wouldn’t be the monster you are now. Because that’s what you are._

  
  


* * *

_Fuck, Marry, Kill: Master Yoda, Master Windu, and Master Uduli. I’ll give you a hint, I’m not fucking Windu or Uduli._

  
  


* * *

Sometimes, she thinks that it works, just a little. Not because she ever feels anything back, never something that strong, but sometimes she’ll be flying with the rebels, trying to outmaneuver _Lord_ Vader (which doesn’t really seem like a promotion from General, in her opinion) and she’ll throw whatever nonsense down the bond she can, and once in a while he’ll miss. Maybe it’s nothing to do with her, but she knows Anakin was never that poor of a shot. 

She wonders sometimes if maybe he is accessing the bond, he’s just better at hiding it now. Now that he’s _Lord_ and _Darth_ and _oh so powerful_ maybe he can just snoop through her mind without her knowing. Realistically, she knows that if that were the case the rebels would be long destroyed by now, but when has fear ever been realistic?

  
  


* * *

_Why won’t you just talk to me? I know it’s you. Why can’t you just_ **_answer me_ ** _?_

And, for the first time since she was a kid, he answers back.

_Fine._

Before she knows what’s happening, he’s there. Not physically, she can tell despite how believable it would seem. If she couldn’t sense him –or, rather, not sense him– she’d believe that he could just teleport. 100%. But the lack of his presence in the Force is a dead give away. Well, that and the fact that he looks exactly like he did the day she left the Order. 

Somehow, despite the fact that the cabin on the ship she’s currently taking to Mandalore has an aggressive amount of fluorescent, white lights, his skin still looks like it’s bathed in the soft golden glow of Coruscant’s setting sun. And, despite the sad context of the last time she saw him that way, she’s happy to see him like that. Between then and now she’d passed him a few times, though never stopping to let him see her, and he’d looked older. More hardened. The anger in him had seemed to be brimming right underneath the surface, rather than just within him. And, to fully break the spell, his eyes shown as a brilliant, horrific gold. 

She absently wonders if he sees her how she appeared in the present, or if he’s seeing some ghost from his past too. 

“You’re here.” Is all she says as she switches the ship to autopilot and turns fully to face him. Despite his appearance, there’s something off about the way he holds himself. Rather than cockily crossing his arms and jutting out his chin, he’s standing the way Obi-Wan used to stand during diplomatic missions. His arms behind his back and gaze far more aloof and privileged then she’d ever remembered. 

“You wouldn’t stop.” His voice is different, too. She’d heard holovids of Darth Vader speaking, heard the voice modulation allowed through his suit and mask, but this wasn’t quite there either. It still sounded like Anakin the way she remembered him. At least, it had the same gravelly tone. But the speech pattern was all wrong. The Anakin she’d known talked with passion, vengeance, excitement. To her, this sounded the way it did like when she’d first become his Padawan, when he’d talked slowly and condescendingly, when he didn’t trust her enough to do anything on her own. 

Because of this small, bypassable detail, she was suddenly pulled back into the fact that this was by _no means_ her former Master. 

“Well?” He prodded, softly arching an annoyed eyebrow, “you spend over a decade attacking me with these belligerent thoughts, all to try and renew some childish bond through the Force because you think you can change the course of history, and now you have nothing to say? Disappointing.”

As he began to turn, as if to leave their somehow-happening conversation, Ahsoka springs to her feet and reaches to him. Before she can make contact with the arm that she knows is mechanical underneath his heavy gloves, he pulls back, and she can suddenly feel her throat constricting. 

“Don’t think,” he says, managing to somehow roar and remain collected at the same time, “that despite our distance I will not be able to end you. I am and have always been stronger than you, and you will _know. your. place.”_

 _This was a bad idea,_ she thought desperately, bent over herself to catch her breath, _she shouldn’t have done this. She thought she could– what? Reason with him? There was no reasoning with a Sith Lord. That much she remembered clearly from her days as a Jedi._

“I just…” she trailed off, not really knowing what she wanted, “I just want to talk.”

“Then _talk.”_

There was something so unfamiliar in the way he was just standing in the middle of the ship, so unconcerned with his surroundings. Back during the Clone Wars, whenever the two of them were assigned a mission that involved a long flight, they would happily turn on the autopilot of the ship and laze around, decidedly _not_ doing what a proper Jedi would. Where someone like Obi-Wan would go through his forms, perfecting his technique, or meditating, Anakin and Ahsoka would play dice games, watch holovids of with terrible acting, or just rest. She missed being able to rest. 

But here, he stood unflinchingly in the middle of the floor, which she supposed probably had to do with the fact that he wasn’t actually on her ship at all, but in some room of his own, and couldn’t interact with her surroundings in the first place. Though she got a deep feeling that, even if he could, he would by no means do the classic Anakin move of sitting on the couch in ways that were _not_ how couches were meant to be sat on. 

“Does this appearance make you uncomfortable, child?” He asked, “Is that the reason you are so hesitant to speak? If this is what’s stopping you from saying whatever it is you need to be said, I will change-”

“No!” She caught herself before she displayed any more emotion than she already had. She was supposed to be older, wiser by now. And yet seeing him like this made her go right back to her Padawan days, “It’s not a problem, I just need to get used to it,” she thought for a second more, “And don’t call me child.”

“Don’t presume that you can order me-”

“Don’t talk over me,” she commanded, and the look on Anakin’s face was so full of genuine shock, that she realized that, most likely, nobody had spoken to him like this in a very long time. 

“How dare you-”

“Would you cut the shit already?” She rolled her eyes, “I get it. You’re some big and powerful Sith Lord who isn’t used to not getting his way. Well, _sit down_ , Anakin. You said you wanted to talk, so we’re going to talk. You could have gone right on ignoring me, but you didn’t. You said you wanted me to talk, so listen to what I have to say.”

After a tense moment, during which Ahsoka genuinely feared he’d either reach into the Force again or simply leave, he said, “Anakin Skywalker died on Mustafar years ago. You will address me as Lord Vadar.”

“Okay, then you can address me as Lord Monstroserous.”

Another heated second passed before he conceded his ground, and if it wasn’t so unlikely, she would’ve thought she saw a hint of a smile brush over his face. Then again, this whole ordeal is unlikely. 

“Very well,” he paused, then added, “Ahsoka.”

In his old voice, it almost sounded like kindness. 

She moved to face him directly, her arms kept crossed across her chest in the way she’d seen him do so many times when interrogating a prisoner. But this wasn’t an interrogation, at least not in the traditional sense. Despite her allegiance to the Rebellion and the good of the galaxy, asking him for information was the last thing on her mind. She wasn’t thinking about base locations or officer name lists. She was thinking about her friend, and how they’d become so distant. How they’d both survived this long without the other knowing. 

“Something is troubling you,” he commented, and she snapped her focus back to his cold, molten eyes. The eyes that didn’t match the rest of his appearance in the slightest. 

“Right, because you can read me so well after all this time.”

“Contrary to what our regime would have you believe, there’s still a man within this suit.”

“I’m not sure how much I believe that.”

“You wouldn’t have kept testing the Force bond you’ve seemed to become so reliant on if that were true. Tell me, do the other rebels know that you have a direct link to the enemy, or do you lie to them the way you’ve so clearly been lying to yourself?”

“Don’t pretend to know me as I am now, Anakin,” she warned, her lekku beginning to flush dark with anger. 

“Emotions like that are hardly the Jedi way,” he commented, and she knew that she was playing right into his hand. That he was toying with her simply because he could. 

“You know damn well I stopped following the Jedi way long before you did,” she retorted, and just for a second, she saw a flash of emotion on his cross his face. A hint of something underlying. He always was the emotional one in their duo, maybe there really still was more Anakin in there than she had believed. 

“Why didn’t you leave the Order sooner?” She asked finally, asking the question she hated to admit had been burning at her for so many years now, “you hated them more than any of us. Why didn’t you-” she cut herself off, laughing quietly to herself, “well, I guess you did eventually do something about it. Dramatic as always, right Skyguy?”

“Don’t call me that,” he said immediately, thought Ahsoka could tell there was no fire behind it this time, “and as for your real question, I don’t fully understand why I should explain myself to a rogue, former-Jedi.”

“Anakin, you know there’s more history between us than that,” she receded back into her thoughts for a second, and decided to make another dumb mistake, “But, if you’re still so hesitant to talk –really talk, I mean,” she took a breath, “then this is the last time. Humor me just this once and I promise this is it. No more reaching out through the bond during battles, no more sending you messages, no more. Just humor me, full honesty, one more time.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “you know it would be very easy for me to just kill you now. Solves the same problem a lot faster.”

“You’re not going to do that.”

He holds her challenging gaze as best he can before breaking and admitting, “your right. I’m not. Somehow, the Dark Side gives much more freedom to these attachments, too.”

Jarring her, almost making her reach for her sabers, he moves. Not towards her, not away, he simply lowers himself to the floor, until he’s sitting cross-legged on the ground in a way that makes her think of the times they’d be forced to meditate together to ‘strengthen their connection to the Force’, as the Council so loved to do. 

She joins him, her hands resting on her knees, and for a second, she can almost imagine it was just another day on Coruscant after long hours of training. 

“You asked your question, now let me ask mine,” he says when she’s settled.

“I actually don’t think you ever really answered it, Skyguy,” she says with the faintest hint of humor, and when all he does is send her an annoyed look she realizes that maybe this might work. 

“Fine, then. To answer your very emotionally charged question which I’m surprised you’re still fretting over, I didn’t leave because I had other things to take care of. Not all of us had the luxury of running away.”

That was a low blow. A shot at an insecurity she’d tried so hard to suppress over the years. 

“It’s not running away if they lock the door first.”

“The way I recall, that door was wide open when you left your beads, tucked tail, and ran.”

“You’re not answering my question!” She exclaimed, frustrated with her former Master, “you’re just deflecting. I want you to tell me the truth. If I would have asked you to leave with me right then and there outside of the Jedi temple, would you have?”

His abnormal, gold eyes didn’t break from hers for a second. 

“Yes.”

“Then _why didn’t you_?”

“Stop getting so focused on the past. You can’t change it. It’s not your responsibility.”

“But-”

“No. I get a question now.”

He looks at her for a second in contemplation, then:

“Have you truly never faltered? Never thought of giving up your futile crusade and joining the Empire?”

Ahsoka almost rolls her eyes. “You can’t expect me to agr-”

“There would be a place for you here.” He doesn’t hesitate. “A rank and a title.” He leans in to deal his fatal blow. “C’mon, Snips, you’ve never even considered it?”

She’s quiet for a second, filled with a rage and loss not uncommon to her. If she were still a Jedi, she’d exhale these emotions into the Force. But she was no Jedi. She hadn’t been for some time now. 

“When I first left, I tried to sever my connection with the Force completely,” dryly she looked at him, “ _clearly_ it didn’t work. Then, for a bit, I just kept doing the usual Jedi stuff. You know, saving kids, stopping robberies, that whole thing. And somewhere along the way, I don’t know, I stopped with the twice-daily meditations and the whole no-attachments-to-anything thing. And, I guess, that’s just how it worked out for me.”

“That sounds to me an awful lot like how most Sith defected from the Order.”

“Anakin, there’s a difference between allowing yourself to feel things and killing kids,” he looked taken aback on that, and she moved in, “yeah, I heard the stories about how Palpatine rose to power. About how he ordered the clones, your _friends,_ to kill the rest of us. How Palpatine’s muscle _killed children,_ Anakin. You killed kids. Pardon me if I think that there’s a difference between how you and I resigned.”

They sat glaring at each other for an entire eternity until finally, he said, “your turn.”

“This one isn’t a question.”

“Still counts.”

She shook her head, almost as if to shake this bad idea out of her head. She stood up, laughing at her truly _unfunny_ situation, pacing around her ship and, at one point, letting out a brief yell of frustration. And, during her whole fit, he just sat there, patiently waiting. 

“You know what sucks?” She finally addressed him, and he only tilted his head a bit towards her, the only sign he was listening, “after all this time, all these horrible things you’ve done, _I’m_ still the one asking for forgiveness. I’m still the one trying to get your attention and- and please you! Like I’m still your stupid apprentice who just wants approval from her teachers. And that’s so embarrassing, Anakin. It’s a shame, because I’m you’re this monster now and I’m this rebellion leader and I spend my time trying to get a Sith Lord to talk to me because even though I walked away and it’s been years, I still can’t look at you without thinking of–” she gestured at him, in his Jedi robes and purposefully unkempt hair, “well _this._ I just…” she felt like she was going to scream again, “despite all of this and all you’ve done, I keep _hoping_ like an idiot. Hoping that this is all some elaborate plan and one day you’re going to do this magnificent turnaround and reveal that you were just playing the long game.” She thought for a second, “and if’ I’m honest, that’s what I was hoping for when you didn’t leave. That you still got it, that you just wanted to fix the Order from the inside out. And then you didn’t, and I-”

She felt a tug on her wrist, and for a second she thought he had grabbed onto her. She sharply turned, expecting to see his hand, only to find him standing where he’d been sitting. Just the Force. Right. 

She blew out a frustrated breath. This is the most emotion she’d shown anyone in years. She’d been a fool to do this. If she ever had to fight him in person again, surely he’d use this against her. Surely he’d-

“Ahsoka,” he said, and she was mad that when she looked at him he’d be able to see the tears prickling in her eyes. She wasn’t a kid anymore, so why was she acting like one? “Listen to me, because this is the last time I’m going to say it. After this, we’re done.”

And so she sits down on the couch, the irony how similar this was to their days of teacher and apprentice not lost on her, and listens. 

“Stop. Caring.” He says it so simply, as if any of it were that simple, and the look he gives her makes her think that maybe he even believes it is. 

“Look, Ahsoka, you’re not my Padawan anymore, and I was never good at being a Master in the first place, but if there’s one thing I can say: stop caring. Forget about the rebellion and the Empire and all of it. You said you didn’t want to play by either sides’ rules? Then don’t. Just leave it altogether. Who’s going to stop you?”

“Anakin, you know I can’t do that.”

“Fine then,” he bows his head, “but at least stop caring about what they think. In experience, you outrank every person fighting in this battle. You were a military commander in the Clone Wars, a Padawan to one of the youngest Jedi Knights in history, and on track to, realistically, be the youngest Jedi to ever become a Master,” he sits down next to her, and it feels weird to be so close to someone so far away, “Snips, you’re out of all of their leagues. If they have a problem with you not being one of those pompous, self-righteous Order members that dropped you in a heartbeat, let them. It’s better than being one of them. Look at me.” She does. “You were better than all of them. They’re not your problem.”

And with that, he vanishes. 

  
  


* * *

In some strange way, it’s what she needed to hear. Even though she knows she’s been essentially told by the enemy to leave the fight, she listens. She finishes her mission, because it’s what she promised she’d do, and then she disappears. And she shows up, from time to time, when the guilt of not doing something beats down on her. But she doesn’t break her back and tear herself limb from limb to please anyone else. 

  
  


* * *

She sees Anakin only one more time after that. It’s a strange, passing glance from the small room she rents at the inn on some backwater planet she decided to visit. It’s some imperial march of power, much like the first time she saw him in his new form, but this time, when she senses him and turns to look at him, only to see him already waiting, she doesn’t balk at the fact that the bond, which had been so sacred to her for so long, can’t even be found.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell I love these two?
> 
> (Also this is the playlist I was #bumping while writing this
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2SA6sfFtkL4Nsc3FdwxeAk?si=9ZHAtlRdSkKZIGNawBTIog )


End file.
